random ramblings

“Manage your energy, not your time” - heard something similar a couple of days back. I took it as figuring out your energy cycles, doing energy audit for ourselves, finding out when you are most energized (morning person vs evening person etc) and planning for the high impact activities during that time. Extending this further, being an introvert and having no option to avoid people, I have to switch myself on for large parts of the day, perform the roles I am expected to play which exhausts me by the end of the day. I have to do an energy audit one of these days.  I read this framing also recently - about being a sofa person or a treadmill person. Sofa person is someone who exhausts you with their negativity that you want to lie on a sofa afterwards. Treadmill person is someone who gives you so much hope and energy that you want to run on a treadmill afterwards to burn that off. I could relate some of my interactions with these definitions. I believe in our work and personal rela...

This past weekend, I watched a final - EFL cup football, between Chelsea and Liverpool. On the Chelsea side, expensive players who collectively cost about one billion dollars. Other side was missing all of its front line three, their first choice goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders - all out due to injury. Liverpool won the match in extra time. They fought fearlessly for 120 minutes and they wanted it more. Liverpool’s manager, Jurgen Klopp, announced stepping down as a manager by the end of this season. He said he is running low on energy, “we are not bunnies anymore, jumping up and down”, that felt like “running on three wheels”, “a race car that can go at 180 mph, but running on fumes and needing to take a rest stop”. Since then, the players and the fans want to make memories with the remaining matches, win everything they can and close this season as a long goodbye. How do one create such a following? He hugs every player coming on, shouting good things in their ear as they wait to...

1.  I had been thinking about this quote for some time.  I want to talk about everything with at least one person as I talk about things with myself. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot Is this really possible? How many will find someone else who will meet this criteria? Some of my thoughts may be ugly versions, uncharitable and wouldn’t I filter to present a better version of myself to another? If we unburden in an unfiltered way, would anyone be able to tolerate it? I was thinking about the free conversations where I don’t check myself for political correctness or trying to impress someone, but to talk things out to make sense of what we are thinking about.  2.  I woke up early one morning this week, wide awake and was trying to analyse how I was feeling. I wanted to sit up and write everything down, but couldn’t bring myself up, instead I was drafting it in my mind for an hour or so, never got to write down fully. It started something like this.   “I wake up f...

1. I had been thinking about limits of communication this week. It is so hard to communicate feedback, build bridges between people who take fixed positions, teach how to use tact in communication, being politically savvy, compromising on minor issues so as to achieve the larger goals together. 2.  There is no outright declared recession right now, but the impact of the topsy turvy economy is stressing everybody out. All businesses are trying to cut costs, improve margins and survive a difficult period. Its impacts are reaching my doorstep as well. I read somewhere that an unprecedented number of elections are happening across the world too this year and from the overall trends, the world is continuing to move to the right. I hope to get through the next six to nine months with minimum impact.  3.  We attempted to teach a group of beginners about moving from fixed scope/time/budget projects to building products. Realized the need to take further steps back to teach busine...

1. Finished reading “The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese. It is a book written by an American, born in Ethiopia, to Malayali parents. It is a story of three generations of a Christian family from 1900 to 1977, based in my place, Trivandrum, along with a diverse cast including a missionary from Sweden and a doctor from Scotland. It made it to Barack Obama’s last year’s book list. Despite its size (700 pgs), it was a breezy read and at stretches felt like the book I needed right now with a story of good people, with kind hearts. My eyes were wet while reading some parts. There are love stories of many in these generations and medical adventures including one in which a doctor finding an innovative way to make an unborn baby retract his hand that stuck out of an abdominal injury to his mother. I felt uneasy reading about the lives of lower caste, upper class privilege and politics - while the author has taken care to bring out a counter view, I am not convinced since I feel it felt...

I was waiting in front of chakki’s school, to pick her up after an extra class. Now that exams are near and portions are not complete, teachers are racing to finish. Rush in front of the school is over. Few kids were waiting for their parents who may be late. It is getting to evening and it is calm everywhere. I see a small fussy kid coming out, she is so small that she doesn’t even reach to her father’s knees. She seems to be I was waiting in front of chakki’s school, to pick her up after an extra class. Now that exams are near and portions are not complete, teachers are racing to finish. Rush in front of the school is over. Few kids were waiting for their parents who may be late. It is getting to evening and it is calm everywhere.  I see a small fussy kid coming out, she is so small that she doesn’t even reach to her father’s knees. She seems to be complaining about stomach pain, her father bends down and pokes her stomach to check where it is paining. He has her bag slung over o...

1. One change that I had been thinking about was to confront problems immediately and directly. I felt many of us put up with the inefficiencies, weaknesses in ourselves and others, imperfect ways of working etc out of respect for others, being diplomatic and to avoid conflicts. Acting on the “Be kind, not nice” maxim which is in my wishlist for this year. I listened to a podcast on Radical Candor as well to learn further.  This week consciously called out two such situations, it might have felt uncharacteristic of me, for people on the other side. I have to learn further to do it much more calmly, one on one, going to the root of the problems and illustrate with examples. I found that in such cases, people react sharply since they may not have heard anyone articulate this aspect about them before. I had one or two rare people in my life who could distil what was happening and tell me an insight which felt obvious. I hope to do the same for others.  2.  Communication is a...